


The Life-Changing Magic of David Rose

by barelypink



Category: Schitt's Creek
Genre: David struggles to clean out his closet, Fluffy, KonMari Method, M/M, Patrick helps, no clothes were harmed in the writing of this fic, or does he?, spark joy, tidying up
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-22
Updated: 2019-10-22
Packaged: 2020-12-28 07:36:40
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,026
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21133040
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/barelypink/pseuds/barelypink
Summary: David decides to KonMari their clothes after readingThe Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up. Patrick has a problem with this and decides to teach David a thing or two about what "spark joy" means.





	The Life-Changing Magic of David Rose

**Author's Note:**

> My tiny little offering for Flufftober. Thank you to [Pants](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Smarty_Pants/pseuds/Pants) for being an insightful and life-affirming beta and to [thegrayness](https://archiveofourown.org/users/thegrayness/pseuds/thegrayness) for their wisdom on adverbs and em dashes. And to all the kind people at the Rosebudd, thanks for all the yelling and tenderness. But mostly the yelling. 
> 
> Apologies to Marie Kondo. May you never have a client like David Rose.

David is standing at the cash register at Rose Apothecary, book in hand, coiffed hair in place, golden rings on his left hand. He looks up at the sound of the bell and smiles at his rosy-cheeked husband, fresh from running errands on this brisk fall day. He steps out from behind the cash register to give Patrick a kiss on the cheek and Patrick leans into David’s warmth, trying to suck some of David’s heat into his bones.

“Ray came in while you were out,” David says with no preamble as if picking up a conversation already in progress. “He wants to host something called a KonMari workshop here for his closet organization business. I told him I would talk to you about it and get back to him. So this is me talking to you about it.”

“Oh. I don’t see how that could hurt. It might be pretty popular,” Patrick says, slipping off his coat.

Of all of Ray’s crazy side hustles, Patrick is always simultaneously baffled and impressed that closet organization has been his most successful. Schitt’s Creek is apparently full of messy closets. It wouldn’t hurt to partner with Ray for something like this. They could turn a tidy profit with very little effort on their part.

“Well, Ray left me the book, so I want to skim through it first to make sure it’s on brand for the store.”

Patrick fingers the book and gives David a wry grin. “David, Marie Kondo is Japanese.”

“Who?”

“The author of the book you are currently holding.”

“Mm, well, that is definitely a mark in her favor then,” David concedes.

“I thought you’d think so,” Patrick says with a fond, affectionate smile.

It’s their Tuesday split shift; David works the morning and Patrick takes the afternoon so they can both have time to take care of other things on what is typically their slowest day of the week. David begins to pack his bag, tossing _The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up_ into its black depths before sidling up to Patrick to brush his lips against his. Patrick’s nose is still charmingly cold, a hint of pink at the very tip.

“I’ll see you at home later?” David asks and how lame is he that he’s halfway to missing Patrick already?

“Yup. You making that risotto for dinner tonight?”

“Ugh. Do I have to?” David whines. He had hoped Patrick had forgotten.

“I won that bet fair and square. So yes, you’re making me risotto.”

“Okay,” David replies no less huffy, “but it wasn’t a fair bet. I should have known Roland would still eat the expired tapenade.”

Patrick merely smirks and sends David out the door with a well-placed swat and a wave before turning to the inventory list. David wonders yet again how he can find Patrick so infuriating--and unbearably attractive--at the same time.

***

When Patrick gets home after work, he discovers David sitting cross-legged on their bedroom floor, surrounded by a haphazard pile of clothes.

“So, this doesn’t look like risotto.”

“Oh, uh...yeah. I may have gotten distracted.”

“Yeah. I’d say so.” Patrick folds his arms over his chest.

“Well, I read that book that Ray gave me and I thought I should try out the methods just to see if they work,” David shrugs.

“Okay. What methods?”

“See, Marie Kondo has a whole system for organizing your life and not being overwhelmed by stuff and I, for one, appreciate an artistically curated environment," David explains. "You’re supposed to go through your whole house, starting with your clothes, and touch each item. If it sparks joy in you, then you keep it. If it doesn’t, you thank it for its service and send it on its way.”

“Like hold a funeral for it?”

“No, you give it away. Donate it. It’s about letting go of what is unnecessary.”

“And how does one’s joy get sparked?” Patrick asks with a tilt to his head, like a intrigued dog.

“I don’t know. It’s just a feeling you have.”

“Hmm. I see.” But Patrick doesn’t see, not really.

David sighs, slightly exasperated. “Well, I thought it was an incisive way to unburden oneself from extra stuff.”

Patrick nods again and looks over the piles of clothes. “So is this the pile of clothes that sparked joy....or the ones that have burdened you?”

David looks at the clothes distastefully. “This is the discard pile.”

Patrick stares at David, one eyebrow raised, waiting for David to see the source of his irritation....or at least to acknowledge it. But David doesn’t seem to find anything wrong with what he’s done.

Patrick clears his throat and tries for a patient voice. “I can’t help but notice that everything in this pile is actually my clothes.”

“And?”

“And, David, we have an entire room of our house dedicated just to your wardrobe, some of which I’ve never even seen you wear! Besides, I think you’re just meant to do your own clothes, not your husband’s.”

“Well, I tried to do mine, but everything I own sparks joy.” David throws up his hands in frustration. He so wanted to feel like he was making progress in tidying up his life. It feels important to make this tiny Japanese woman proud.

“It does?” Patrick asks incredulously.

“Yes, it does.”

“Even the alpaca poncho you picked up in Peru that you said was the itchiest thing you’d ever worn?”

“Well, I had a great time at Macchu Pichu. There was this sherpa....”

Patrick raises a hand to silence him. “Okay. I really don’t need the details.”

He turns his eyes to the pile, examining all the clothes that David has selected. It seems like a lot of his favorite clothes actually. Patrick wonders what he will have left to wear or if David intends for Patrick to wander the streets of Schitt’s Creek half naked. Patrick notices one particular item, and he reaches down to grab a pair of shoes out of the heap, hugging them securely to his chest.

“Not these.” Patrick says decisively.

“But you just bought a new pair of mountaineering shoes with the swoopy thing on it that you said were better for your arches,” David cries, eyeing Patrick dubiously. “Those are all worn out. You can’t even wear them anymore.”

“The shoes stay.”

“But if they don’t spark joy—”

“They spark joy for me, David! And since they are my shoes, don’t I get to be the one who decides what does and does not spark joy for me?”

“Sure. Yes. Absolutely. If you want to be a pack rat, by all means. I just...why? Why do those spark enough joy to cradle them like a baby?”

“Because, David, these are the ‘mountaineering shoes’ I wore when you called me your boyfriend for the first time. These are also the same shoes I wore when we hiked Rattlesnake Point the day I proposed.”

David gives Patrick a look Patrick knows all too well by now. It’s the kind of look you get when you say “it’s nothing” when you give them a gift, but when you meet their eyes across a sticky Formica table, they say “it’s not nothing” with a face that screams “it’s everything.”

“Oh. So they’re just full of joy, those shoes.” David says softly.

“The very sparkiest of joy.”

David looks to the pile of clothes he’s thrown onto the floor, now wondering what other stories got woven in their thread and stitches and buttons when he wasn’t paying attention. David picks up one of the blue shirts and holds it up.

“What about this one? Does this one spark joy?”

“Yes. I wore that on the day Rose Apothecary opened and we hugged for the first time.”

David sucks in his lips to hide his smile and touches another button-down shirt. “And this?”

“That’s the shirt I wore when we said I love you for the first time. But you know what? You’re right. We can get rid of that one. I’m not so sure I look very good in purple.”

David doesn’t move. Patrick raises an eyebrow.

“No.”

“Oh, is that sparking joy for you now, David?”

“Maybe.”

“So you want me to keep it?” Patrick smiles his upside-down smile.

“You could.”

“I could.” Patrick parrots back, amused.

“I mean, you should. You look very nice in purple.”

“OK. I’ll keep it then.”

David nods, like Patrick has made a wise choice, as if Patrick were the one who had even considered thanking the purple shirt for its service and sending it on its way in the first place.

David holds up a light blue sweater, slightly stretched out of shape and pilling at the cuffs.

“Surely this one can go?” But he says it with a gently mocking taunt.

“I think you’re well aware that that is the sweater I wore that night at Stevie’s. You know, the first time we...um.”

“Patrick, we’re married. I think you can say that we had sex that night. A lot of very good sex.”

Patrick blushes furiously, ostentatiously. David likes him so very much.

“Okay, what about this one? This isn’t the shirt you wore on the day we met or on our first date or anything like that. I remember those shirts.”

“No, no," Patrick says with just the barest hint of a satisfied grin. "No, that’s just the shirt I was wearing the day I decided to marry you.”

“Oh,” says David. It’s all he can manage to say. Patrick looks at him expectantly, triumphantly, like he’s won an argument David didn’t even know they were having until halfway through.

“So,” David stops to clear his throat, “what you’re saying is that all of these clothes spark joy for you because they remind you of me, of us, of our relationship?” David asks.

“That is what I’m saying, yes.” Patrick’s voice is low and smooth. David loves him so very much.

“Okay,” David responds, a smile tiptoeing across his lips. “I guess it’s okay if these clothes stay.”

“How very kind of you, David,” Patrick says. “But perhaps you need more practice with this KonMari method. We could go to your closet right now and try it again.”

“No, no,” David says in a rush, worried that Patrick will really make him unburden himself of some of his clothes. “I think I’ve made an adequate study of the method. Ray can hold his little workshop thingy at the store.”

“Really?” Patrick asks, that teasing tilt to his head. He’s going to mess with David now and David is going to let him and they’re both going to love it. So David lets Patrick pull him to his feet so that they’re standing eye-to-eye, chest-to-chest, inches apart, Patrick’s eyes now locked on the soft curve of David’s mouth, hand at his waist where cloth meets body. If David weren’t so neatly stitched up in his own skin, he’d be blown apart by now, burst open from the inside out, glowing with a white hot heat.

“Hey, David,” Patrick whispers, studying him through lowered lashes. “Do you feel that?”

David’s spine has turned into a live wire, igniting in dazzling bursts along each vertebra, goosebumps parading up his arms in double time. There’s a tingle in his fingertips, a flush in his cheeks, and a flutter in his ribcage just beneath his heart. Patrick crowds into David’s space as if to kiss him and, God, David loves this moment, the moment before a kiss, finds it more exhilarating and tantalizing than the kiss itself. He wills himself to stand still, to let Patrick wreck him in his sure and subtle way.

“What?” David breathes, and dammit, Patrick can be such a tease sometimes and he hates himself for loving it so much. He falls for it every time. “A spark?”

“No,” Patrick replies softly, breath hitching, and eyes now fixed with David’s. “Joy.”

The smile on Patrick's face flares brighter than a freshly struck match, but David barely has time to take it in before Patrick closes the space between them and sets them both ablaze.

**Author's Note:**

> I’ve watched each episode several times and I cannot confirm that the mountaineering shoes are, in fact, the same shoes in both _Girls' Night_ and _The Hike._. I suspect that they are not, but really, how many pairs of mountaineering shoes does Patrick need? Let’s all just pretend they’re the same.


End file.
